Posts made by Arkandel

MSB, meet Sylvanas, second of her name.

Yeah so she's a yet another foster failure. In fact this household has yet to experience a foster success. Apparently once in there's no getting out.

What sealed her fate is how well that motherfucker fit in with the other critters. Especially with Winnie, the little hyperactive dog I was a bit worried about - they fucking love each other. They sleep together, basically entwined like long-lost siblings.

It took her a week to win everyone over. Gus, my older cat hissed at her once. Now they play all night long. Ruby, my old dog doesn't care for cats (usually he just ignores them completely, even Gus); but he's nuzzled Sylvie in front of my shocked eyes at least once.

What the fuck. Eh, whatever. She can stay I GUESS. But damn she eats like she's been starving her whole life (all of like, eight weeks). She eats her food, the adult cat food, the dog food, treats. She's making me do the cat litter constantly which I think it's on purpose.

I'm annoyed at myself about the way I allow myself to think of gaming if I'm not being careful.

For example I was reading a thread about which class people plan on playing in WoW's next patch. However some of the posts were like "I always play warriors!" or "I'm gonna play a shaman because I like throwing lightning bolts!" and that annoyed me. Those are not quantifiable reasons, dammit, where are the logs showing that those specs are competitive? Are their new set tier bonuses powerful?

And then I remember. Oh, it's a game. Right. These people are basically saying they're having fun and I didn't think it was a good enough reason.

Dammit.

@ganymede No different than a MUSH's rules, really. After all, what is a MUSH but a video game?

Blizzard's newest post on fixing their culture issues.

@silverfox I meant to tag you, sorry. It's been one of those days.

@greenflashlight Cobra Kai is heeeeavily based on 80s nostalgia. And it's overly dramatic - even cheesy - by design. That's the kind of show it is!

Realism is thrown out of the window the moment cops and concerned parents haven't already gotten pretty much everyone involved in these massive high school karate brawls expelled and pressed charges on their assorted sensei.

***NSFW content***

@faraday Waaait a sec. More information is needed here!

How is working with a sibling? I can't imagine working with my sister on a regular basis. We get along quite well... unless we spend too much time together too often, at which point the grumbling begins.

Fuck you all, I binge-watched the shit out of Cobra Kai and I'm tired of pretending I didn't!

(Double post, ohno)

I went back to WoW. If anyone on the Horde side is doing Mythic+ and wants to group up I'm online most evenings. Feel free to reach out to become Battle.Net buddies!

What I am really hoping the Microsoft acquisition of Blizzard will do - aside from actually helping the toxicity in their working environment, which they almost certainly will, since it also helps them do 'reset' most of its management without the controversy of firing them - is actually address the overall way the games themselves are set up.

For example World of Warcraft has been relying on long, long grinds to stretch out content and prolong subscriptions. Repetitive quests that need to be done (often from scratch on alts) to gain access to essential part of your characters' abilities have long been a staple of how things are done.

If they fold subscriptions into Game Pass it is possible they will rely instead on the game's own merit, and the fact your money is going toward the overall content instead of only WoW.

And that would be lovely.

I am not sold on Book of Fett either. It's not that it's bad.

For starters I agree with what others said; like it or not the actor isn't young any more and it's hard to pull off cool, choreographed fighting scenes. That's something they should have been able to work around though - Fett wears a full armor and helmet, for crying out lout. Surely they could have professional stuntmen doing the flippy flip stuff.

It's also though that the show isn't giving us a cool supporting cast. It's merely hinting at it. Ming-Na Wen is awesome but she barely does anything. There are morally gray characters such as a local club owner played by Jennifer Beals but she also does very little other than appear now and then. The Mayor is cool but what's his story? The henchmen have no lines. The desert tribal people have no lines.

We need some fucking dialogue in this show. Character development. Something.

My take is pretty straight forward.

If an adult can be vaccinated but isn't then I hope they stay healthy. I wish no harm on them.

However if they get sick then I also have little sympathy for them. Less so if their choice is due to politics.

@greenflashlight Frustration aside, I was never comfortable with https://reddit.com/r/hermancainawards and the idea of laughing at people dying.

Yes, it was their own fault in many, many posts showcased in that subreddit. Yes, they were stupid as fuck and fell to lies fed by political predators. And yes, some of them weren't great human beings in the first place, as evidenced by openly racist posts they had made previously on social media.

But dammit they were still people. They had family, spouses, children and friends who loved and will miss them. Rubbing it in their faces, especially right after that person died and the grief is still fresh, is in pretty bad taste.

I'm quite pro-vaccine but I have to agree with this Oxford scientist's opinion that we can't vaccinate the planet every six months.

It simply isn't feasible on any level. Economically, especially for less wealthy countries, the rates were always low to begin with - but since the world is a global village now there is no containing outbreaks. On top of that entire chunks of the economy can't just collapse on a regular basis; rents and mortgages are lagging behind, jobs disappear, schools close, and social services are strained to keep up.

Even socially it's getting harder and harder to get buy-in. For example Spain used to have one of Europe's highest vaccination rates but there now massive protests in the new year regarding new measures. It's understandable; this is difficult mentally as well, and there is no end in sight.

In my (uninformed, as I am not a medical professional) opinion it doesn't seem like we can eliminate coronaviruses in general. We'll need to figure out to turn their impact into flu-like mild waves requiring a lot less urgent care. One good way to do so is the new over-the-counter pills treating infections... assuming they can work to keep relatively healthy people out of the hospital after they contact the virus.

It was snowing today. Winnie felt very sad about being forced to dive face-first into everything, and wanted back in after she run across the yard like an absolute idiot first.

@greenflashlight I think although both movies leaned heavily into the nostalgia factor, Spider-man was (in my opinion) much more successful at it.

It really had a lot of heart, which given the number of moving pieces and guest stars is an achievement on its own.

@bear_necessities Exactly. I expect a lot of things will be very similar - the POTUS, major celebrities, historic figures, etc will be mostly the same for the purposes of these films.

But they are also not the same. Even if JJJ looked identical it's quite possible he'd have had slightly (or not-so-slightly) different life experiences, goals, family life, etc.

Spider-Man: No Way Home was excellent.

I'd put it second only to Endgame, and even that just because the latter was the cultivation of and payoff to multiple movies and character arcs. Otherwise Spider-man was on the same tier as Winter Soldier, Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok for me.

That movie had a heart, and showed it.

@ganymede Yeah, the percentage I read about (no citation though, too lazy to look it up) is two vaccination doses reduce the risk of hospitalization by 8 times and a booster shot by 20 times compared to unvaccinated folks.

I completely agree with you about the unvaccinated. Unless they are immune-compromised I don't care. They're adults, they made their beds. Sorry-not-sorry.

But... the real issue is that this doesn't help the rest of us. The unvaccinated will still go to the hospital when they get sick. The hospitals have to help them - it's simply not an option to turn them away, and rightly so. So once the ICUs are all taken then perfectly responsible, vaccinated folks in need of urgent care for reasons unrelated to Covid will not find a vacancy.